1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data input devices, and more particularly pertains to data input devices using an electronic pen input device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Traditional computer system user interfaces have a limited range and type of acceptable inputs. Some newer types of user interfaces incorporate features that allow for some intuitive control of the computer devices and inputs thereto, but their functionality is limited by the discontinuity between the physical world in which the user is located and the virtual, electronic realm of computing devices.
Physical, written paper documents are easy to create using pen and paper, do not require a source of electric power, and allow free form drawing. Electronic documents, however, are becoming increasingly popular because they are easy to store, manipulate, duplicate, and transfer. Prior art systems have attempted to allow users to create free form documents using a paper and pen, and then convert the physical document to an electronic (virtual) form. It is known, for example, to scan a physical document, such as a sheet of typed or handwritten text into a computer system using a scanner, and to then convert the scanned sheet of text into a virtual document for display, storage, and manipulation of the virtual document.
It is known that digitizer systems can acquire handwritten input to render an electronic version of a physical writing. In digitizer systems heretofore, it is difficult to associate pages of a physical writing with pages of an electronic representation of the physical writings. For example, there exists the difficulty of accurately identifying and associating pages of a physical writing generated using the pen input device of the digitizer system with the proper pages of the electronic representation of the physical writing. Thus, accurate navigation of the electronic representation of the physical writing is difficult. A solution in a known digitizer system prohibits user access to a page after an electronic representation of that page has been created. Another purported solution of digitizer systems heretofore displays an image of the electronic representation of the written page on a display device so that a user can visually compare an image of the electronic representation of the writing and the physical writing for a match.